Wednesday 16 May 2012

Saucony Kinvara 3 review

The newly launched Saucony Kinvara 3 is an update on the successful Kinvara and Kinvara 2 shoes which have done much to popularise the minimal trend in recent years. The original Kinvara's were a hard shoe for me to fall in love with as the ride was on the soft side for my liking and also had a fairly high level of outsole wear if running on tarmac.

So jumping into the Kinvara 3 I noticed straight away what felt like a firmer, more solid ride while maintaining flexibility. Perhaps this is down to a thicker and wider midsole which manages to combine a minimal 4mm heel to toe drop with a nice stable platform to run on.

photo by adrian royle
These really needed no breaking in and the second time out I wore them in a 5k road race (left) with good results. The 218g weight puts them on a par with most racing shoes (certainly for the longer distances) and they felt fine in the 5k with no calf muscle soreness the next day.

The outsole looks like it is going to wear better than previous models and the one watch out for is the toe box and overall sizing. I've got quite a broad forefoot and the toe box on this shoe is very wide. Indeed the overall size of the UK8.5 was quite generous and I may even be better off in a UK8 which would be surprising give the consistency of Saucony sizing over the years. So definitely one to try before you buy to make sure you get the right fit

The uppers are available in a range of colours and the design is really slick, both in look and feel. You hardly notice that the upper is there and the colours really do get you noticed !


4 comments:

Joe said...

These sound really good, don't look that bad either!

Martin Rush said...

Just taken receipt of a pair myself - after an 18 minute 5k in a pair of Saucony Mirage I feel a season best coming on in these. May get down to Yeovil to race a summer series in the near future!

Martin Rush

Anonymous said...

These are amazing!! Just ran a half- marathon in these after only owning them for a week. Felt so light on my feet and ended the race with only two tiny blisters on the top of my toe but that has nothing to do with the shoe, just the angle of my foot, I've had this problem before. Unreal!!!! I used to swear by New Balance, not anymore :)

Anonymous said...

I'm finding the shoe runs a little bigger than the previous Kinvara 2...lots of strange flexing and bending at the flex points on the top of the shoe in the toe box going back toward the laces...has anyone found this to be the case? I've done about 6 miles in them (2 days of 3 miles) to break them in but that doesn't seem to be working yet. Any other advice, other than going down a half size?